Most experienced internet marketers say that if you advertise in pay per click search engines, you should have a landing page for driving the pay per click traffic to it. This landing page is different from home page and should be just focused on selling the product whereas the home page should be optimized for search engines and so is not good in generating sales. They say home page is not a suitable page to drive the pay per click traffic to it and you waste money if you do that. It means a page that is optimized for search engines can not generate sales. I don't agree with this idea because if optimization disables the home page to sell the products to the visitors, so the traffic it receives from search engines, will be useless. So why should we optimize it? What do you think?
There are no absolutes and I think many people get confused with the terminology - a home page or any entry page can be seen as a landing page. In addition, using a landing page for PPC isn't due to a home page is structured for SEO. Let me explain... Landing pages are very effective for PPC because they are developed for strong relevancy with particular PPC keywords and keyword themes. By relevance I mean that all components of the landing page including headline, images, body text, sub-heads, offer and so on connect directly with the customer's intent as revealed by their keyword usage and the ad copy that caused the click-through. So a person clicking on "silver ipod nano" would land on a page directly associated with a silver ipod nano. In order to focus visitor attention, landing pages also typically have limited or no navigational links. A home page, by its very nature, serves multiple objectives especially with an e-commerce site that sells hundreds or thousands of products. A landing page typically serves one purpose. In addition, a landing page enables marketers to split-test different website conversion strategies for increasing conversion and lowering cost per action. Home pages are more difficult to split-test because changes to the website could impact SEO value. Finally, landing pages are very effective for short term promotions or niche keyword opportunities because they aren't created with SEO in mind. They can be thrown up and dropped quickly. MarketingSherpa.com has a good workbook called the "Landing Page Workbook." It provides a good start for learning how to design effective anding pages. I have been using landing pages for over four years with my PPC clients and they continue to work (in terms of increasing conversion) extremely well. However, in some cases, a home page works well at converting paid search traffic or specific keywords. You have to consider your keywords, the relevancy of your home page (or other entry pages on the site), test it out, measure and then take the next step. But as with everything it seems, there isn't always "one way fits all." Hope this helps.
For my Adwords campaign I send the "clicker" to different pages on my site depending on the search term. For example if the search term was relating to a specific product I send them direct to that products into on our site where they can then make a purchase.
I agree with Ruby. Sending users to specific pages rather than general landing pages, imo should have a higher rate of click to sale
Its common sense really.... when someone searches for something they want it to be ONE CLICK AWAY! If they are taken to your main site then they have to search yet again! Internet users these days are in a rush, impatient and want answers! The less clicks the better so if you can take them to the exact page where the info they are looking for exists then you increase your chances of a sale twofold.
Homepage is a single page of the site whereas there can be many different landing pages that an advertiser can use depending upon keywords/themes. So using homepage of the site as a landing page does not always makes sense. for example, a shopping site selling mobiles, digicams etc would have separate landing page for mobiles and digicam. It would not make sense to land the person on the homepage of such a site and then ask him/her to locate mobiles/digicams themselves. Some of them might be able to locate them and some will simply close your site. So, its about landing your visitor on the most relevant page so that you get more out of each visitor.
I think having a landing page is the best option for sales, go directly to what they want and not loose the potential sale because it landed on the home page.
Best way to look at look at it: If the keyword phase is a general term, send them to the homepage. This gives the user a chance to see everything there is to offer. If the keyword phase is specific, send them to a specific landing environment. This will allow you to remove as many barriers as possible between the click and the actual sale.